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Crit Care Nurse 2002 Apr; 22(2): 152
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In Our Unit

Posters Give Nursing Staff Consistent Information

Gina Maiocco, RN, PhD, CCRN

Gina Maiocco is the critical care clinical specialist at Bethesda North Hospital, part of TriHealth, Cincinnati, Ohio.

"In Our Unit" highlights unique practices, innovations, research, or resourceful solutions to commonly encountered problems in critical care areas and settings where critically ill patients are cared for. If you have an idea for an upcoming "In Our Unit," send it to CRITICAL CARE NURSE, 101 Columbia, Aliso Viejo, CA 92656; fax, (949) 362-2049; e-mail, ccn{at}aacn.org.

Posters have long been recognized as an effective medium for disseminating information, particularly with respect to evidence-based practice. At TriHealth’s Bethesda North Hospital, Cincinnati, Ohio, posters are now also being used for staff education at the clinical level in the surgical, medical, cardiac, and open-heart intensive care units. The benefits are more widespread than originally imagined.

The idea of using posters for staff education emerged from an evidence-based practice presentation put on by the hospital’s Nursing Research Committee. Observing the nurses as they asked questions and interacted made me realize how easily and effectively this approach could be applied to staff education at the unit level. In addition, with staffing becoming increasingly tight, it was often difficult to schedule the nurses for inservices. This was important information that probably would not be seen or heard in a sit-down environment.

Although I provided mentoring and guidance along the way, the majority of the project was driven by a pilot group of 6 nurses, who used quality improvement and needs assessment data to identify and develop topics to present. This process also helped overcome the rigidity in thinking that posters are only for academia. In addition, the opportunity fit well with the hospital’s clinical ladder program, because the participating nurses could earn credit. It is a win-win situation all the way around.

This approach helps us disseminate a lot of information in a succinct, consistent way. In an oral presentation, you can forget to tell one group something that you told another. While developing the poster, you can make certain that you cover all the data necessary. The posters can also be updated easily, for example, with new quality improvement data. Poster topics to date have included trauma, cranial nerve assessment, and organ donation.

The poster presentations have also been cost-effective, because we have been able to use them in multiple settings including individual inservices, unit meetings regarding specific cases, annual competency-based review days, as part of orientation for new nurses, and as references. Also, because the posters are part of a systems approach to healthcare, they can be used in other areas. We can use them to show the emergency department or telemetry units what we are doing with respect to a specific topic.

Because the information is static, the nurses can both read and refer to it on their own or while interacting with a colleague. A signup sheet records who has read a poster and who still needs to.

If you would like more information about how these educational posters are used, contact Gina Maiocco at (513) 745-1272; e-mail, Gina_Maiocco{at}trihealth.com.



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  		Trauma poster outlining primary and secondary assessment of trauma patients.

 




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Right arrow Articles by Maiocco, G.

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